- Pearl Hospitality Unveils $81M Renovation Plans for Marriott Opening Downtown Next Spring [Houston Business Journal; previously on Swamplot]
- City Demolished 39 Nuisance Buildings During Demolition Day on Saturday [abc13]
- Rice Village’s Garden Gate Closing Today After 20 Years To Make Way for Hanover Apartment Complex [Houston Chronicle ($); previously on Swamplot]
- Developers Hope New Viva Cinema Will Speed Up Momentum at PlazAmericas Shopping Center [Houston Chronicle ($)]
- Max’s Wine Dive Expanding with Second Location, Opening on Fairview in Montrose This Fall [Eater Houston]
- 13.5-Mile Stretch of 290 HOT Lane Opens Today [Click2Houston]
- Metro Police Issuing Fewer Fare-Jumping Warnings, Citations to Light Rail Riders [Houston Chronicle ($)]
- League City To Refund Magnolia Creek Subdivision Homeowners $1.5M Due To Over-Assessment, Accounting Error [Galveston County Daily News ($)]
- HOA, Forrest Lake Townhouse Resident Going To Court Over Flagpole Dispute [Houston Chronicle ($)]
- League City Looks To Desalination for Future Water Needs [Galveston County Daily News ($)]
- Thieves Stealing Metal Tree Stakes from MacGregor Park [Click2Houston]
- Invasive ‘Crazy Ants’ Slowly Displacing Fire Ants in Southeastern United States [Houston Chronicle]
- American Society of Interior Designers Home Tour Runs Until May 27 in Fort Bend [Houston Chronicle ($)]
- Houston Architect Frank Zeni’s Impossible-To-Miss Metal Home in the West End [Houstonia Magazine]
- Galveston’s West End Gets First Landmark Designation [Galveston County Daily News ($)]
Photo: Russell Hancock via Swamplot Flickr Pool
It’s great that they finally filled the cinema at the Plaz Americas Mall. they’ve been working on that for a while. I do hope the Viva Cinema helps draw a wider audience to the Mall. It’d be really awesome to see first-run Latin American indie films there. And Given the diversity of the area, they could add some Bollywood and new Chinese films into the mix. I’d go.
.
Of course, I could be dreaming. The rest of the mall has the look and feel of a giant dollar store. The theater might wind up just playing blockbusters with subtitles, and being overrun by particularly unruly teenagers. Only time will tell.
Good progress is being made on the JW Marriott downtown, but they really need to do something about the old Battelstein’s next door to it (812 Main). It’s been vacant for decades, and now with all the vacant buildings around it dealt with (after building BG Group Place across the street, the Main@Walker garage next door, and now the JW Marriott on the other side), it seems like a prime building to redevelop.